Harald Kjellin: The psychologist who became a computer scientist

Professor Harald Kjellin worked as a psychologist for many years before he retrained and became a computer scientist. As a red thread through all he has done is knowledge and learning in one form or another. It has been about how knowledge is built and systematized and about teaching skills. 2006 he became professor at DSV.

For many years Harald Kjellin was involved in educational and training activities mostly in Stockholm. 1984 he felt it was time for a restart with a different focus, and he began studying informatics. Soon he realised he needed skills in computer and systems science for that. And the rest is history.

“This was something completely different from psychology. There were clear and precise structures. It was a totally different world that really appealed to me,” Harald underlines.

That is also how his interest in artificial intelligence was born. 1987 he joined DSM, and eventually resulted in a thesis in knowledge gathering with Professor Carl-Gustaf Jansson as a supervisor.

"Then I started to work on a project at AMS with "Artificial labor counselor," says Harald. It was "virtual" counselors who gave job advice. It was then in operation during most of the 90s

Knowledge Management
During the latter half of the 90th century, Harold got tired of AI - he felt he did not want to keep on programming the rest of his life.

“That's when I started to take an interest in knowledge management,” says Harald. “I want to study how to manage people's knowledge, and how then can reuse this knowledge. I am particularly interested in machine learning - that is how the system gets smarter the more they are used.”

But even the smartest system eventually becomes obsolete. This was what happened to the artificial labor counselor. In his present activities, he focuses on research methods, knowledge management and game theory. But above all he is interested in the power play in organizations - especially when questions about how organizations should be learning.

Teaching
At DSV he focuses on teaching. Harald is for example programme director for “Marketing & IT” conducted jointly with the Department of Advertising and Public Relations. Right now he works also with course development for distance education.

“In this I see myself a bit like a "director" - where the content is emerging in a dialogue between teachers and students. This development work is just begun.” Harald emphasizes.

Harald does not really like distance education - he thinks students should meet each other and their teachers. But there are many advantages with distance learning. It gives great opportunities for flexible learning, which is an extra challenge to the course coordinators.

Harald is currently working on developing a new system for evaluating the quality of the Swedish universities' Web Communications.

“Nowadays students themselves can plan how to organize their studies. Then it is especially important to ensure that students have access to all necessary information,” Harald explains. The system provides an answer to whether the students have access to the information they need in order to optimize the quality of their studies.

In addition, Harald has started a number of short courses in the area of Leadership, which is at 2.5 points each. Course information

Views towards the outside world
Harald points out some current trends which started to attract researchers several years ago.

“I think it's exciting with phenomena such as Facebook and Wikipedia,” Harald underlines. “Similar issues interested us as researchers long before - it shows that research often is ahead. It is also interesting to see how quickly these kinds of phenomena can grow if people feel motivated.”

Harald is really interested in how knowledge is built up in organizations. It is interesting to study how networks are emerging within organizations and companies. It often occurs as a development from within creative individuals and not by central control.

“It is better to let your creativity run wild - then you get the best solutions,” Harald says. “You can also see how the more traditional business systems evolve more and more towards what is called SOA – i.e. Service Oriented Architecture.”

Harald is waiting for tools that will make it possible to do much more refined, combined searches. The question is who will be first.

“Within the research group information systems, we are working with the creation of "ontologies" - that is a kind of conceptual models / conceptual structures for different areas,” Harald explains. “It is essential that we will get good search facilities in future.”

Research
“I do research on how to get companies to become learning,” says Harald. “I want us to abandon the "technical language" and create information and communication for humans on their conditions.”

Harald says that researchers often complicate things - make their research more "remarkable" than it is. This creates an unnecessary distance to the real world outside academia.

“It's pointless to do research if you are not read by non-scientists,” Harald stresses. “We need another reward system so that researchers can get qualified in other ways than today, where the number of research articles is what counts.”

Harald is hoping for a research that has an impact, and that can influence and change. Because it is really weird that you get money from it you say you will do and not what you actually have done, or what it meant, Harald Kjellin concludes.